The Eighteenth-Century State System 387tury reflected a more even distribution of power. This balance of power
was increasingly affected not only by events overseas but also by those in
Eastern Europe. There, Russia expanded its empire at the expense of the
Ottoman Empire, and Russia, Prussia, and Austria dismembered Poland in
a series of Partitions, the last in 1795.
The increasingly global nature of conflicts between empires put strains
on the structures of states in Europe. They were forced to reorganize them
selves to become more efficient. In Britain, as the role of the House of Com
mons expanded and political parties emerged, newspapers and organizations
in which politics was discussed created public opinion, transforming the
public sphere as more people demanded political reform. A precocious sense
of British national identity and patriotism developed.
Reform movements and even uprisings in Europe alarmed rulers and
intrigued intellectuals, who in increasing numbers denounced unwarranted
privilege and despotism. American colonists rose up against British rule.
Public opinion on the continent demanded reform; in France, the par
lements began to defend the “nation” against monarchical despotism. As
contemporaries sought explanations for movements that sought to limit
monarchical authority, the Bavarian envoy in Vienna went so far as to claim
in 1775 that “the spirit of revolt has become universal.”
The Eighteenth-Century State System
In eighteenth-century Europe, the powers danced together in temporary
partnership until the music changed and old partners were deserted and
new ones embraced. The eighteenth-century state system was a pattern of
rivalry and alliance in which powerful states vied for dynastic and global
power. Few borders or thrones were secure from challenge by other rulers
coveting more territory. Rulers sought to expand their power through mar
riage, inheritance, alliances, or warfare. Other states sought to maintain the
balance of power, so that one state did not grow more powerful at the
expense of the others. Spain, France, the Dutch Republic, Sweden, Poland
Lithuania, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire found them
selves with less power than in the seventeenth century, while Britain,
Russia, and Prussia continued to extend their reach.
The emergence of a global economy increasingly linked to colonial trade
engendered rivalries as Britain, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic bat
tled for commercial and colonial advantage, preparing the way for European
expansion in the nineteenth century. The wars between the great powers
spilled into the Americas and India. The powers were motivated by the
hope of economic gain and reflected the primacy of the economic theory
of mercantilism, which assumed that there was a finite amount of wealth
available in the world, and that the might of any state depended on its suc
cess in bringing in more gold than it paid out.